Telescope, the third favourite for the Derby, will have a racecourse gallop at Lingfield on Wednesday. Photograph: Alan Crowhurst/Getty Images

Wednesday's best bets, by Tony Paley

The official racing is very ordinary fare on Wednesday, not helped by the fact that it's mostly all-weather and jumps racing. Though the cold weather due to set in over the next 24 hours will be a suitable accompaniment. By far the most interesting horse on the track is Telescope who will be completing a racecourse gallop at 1pm at Lingfield ahead of a possible run in the Derby next week, for which he is currently third favourite.

Later on in the afternoon at the Surrey course Vertueux (3.30) makes most appeal on the card. He has been campaigned over a variety of staying trips so far this term and though he struggled at a mile and a half at Wolverhampton two starts ago, his run over two miles at Chepstow was much more like it and he could go one better.

Tipping competition, day three

We're continuing our experiment without scores, though we will be keeping you posted as to the leader's identity and score from day to day. The winners so far:

Tuesday

Green Earth 8-1

Monsieur Jamie 8-1

Mad Jazz 5-1

Monday

Jack Luey 6-1

Fiftyonefiftyone 9-4

Hoofalong 9-4

And our leader is:

jakebuckfast +13.25

. . . who was one of yesterday's joint-leaders and improved his position with Green Earth.

This week's prize is a copy of Racehorses of 2012, the latest annual from the highly respectred Timeform organisation, which assesses every horse that ran on the Flat last year and includes a lengthy essay on 80 of the most notable. This year's annual retails at £79, runs to 1,200 pages and was reviewed by Tony Paley here. If you don't win it, you can buy a copy here.

In the event of a tie at the end of the week, the winner will be the tipster who, from among those tied on the highest score, posted their tips earliest on the final day.

We'll persist with last week's scoreless experiment EXCEPT that this time we'll advise of the leading score each morning, so that you all know what sort of total you're aiming at. Then we'll name the winner on Friday evening. Thanks for bearing with us during this experiment, which certainly helps save some time for our hard-pressed team.

As ever, our champion will be the tipster who returns the best profit to notional level stakes of £1 at starting price on our nominated races, of which there will be three each day up until Friday. Non-runners count as losers.

If you have not joined in so far this week, you are welcome to do so today, but you will start on -3.